meego

Smartphone startup Jolla will open up sales of its Sailfish OS handset to pre-booking customers from today, the company has confirmed, with initial deliveries expected to begin in December. The new phone - which will also go on sale later this month at physical stores in Finland - is priced at the equivalent of around $513 off-contract and SIM-free, and uses a new platform based on Nokia-abandoned MeeGo.

Smartphone startup Jolla has revealed its first device, the Sailfish-powered Jolla, expected to ship by the end of the year. Running the MeeGo-derived OS on a dualcore processor, the Jolla phone packs a 4.5-inch display and heavily gesture-centric UI, as well as 4G connectivity and an 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash.

With Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility last year, manufacturers of Android-based devices such as Samsung are, as evidenced by their announcement today*, making moves to cut down their reliance on the big G. This announcement comes straight from Samsung in Suwon, South Korea, where Samsung has made it clear that they're moving forward with Tizen on a real significant scale.

It's a rare opportunity that's been taken advantage of this week with the now near-dead mobile operating system MeeGo's former developers being rounded up and interviewed for a pack of information that gives us all a look into its short-lived dreams. It's Finnish site Taskumuro that has this set of interviews turned into a history of MeeGo complete with what essentially amounts to confirmation that Nokia was planning on bringing the Nokia N9 with MeeGo to Verizon - and that they had a tablet in the works as well. Wouldn't it be nice?

About a year ago, a project to develop a new mobile operating system called MeeGo was cancelled in favor of Tizen. Then, back in July, we were told that a group of Nokia ex-employees formed a startup called Jolla and would be reviving MeeGo. Fast forward to today, and we're now told that the Finnish-based company is getting funding to develop a new operating system based on MeeGo.

Jolla, the Helsinki-based startup hoping to make use of Nokia’s abandoned MeeGo platform, has revealed additional details surrounding the phone it hopes to launch later in the year. Arctic Startup quotes publication 3T in detailing Jolla’s plans, with the company’s CEO, Jussi Hurmola, saying that the new OS will run HTML5 apps in addition to Qt apps. Not only that, but it looks like Jolla will employ one of RIM’s tactics for the BlackBerry PlayBook, hoping to run Android apps in addition to its own native offerings.

Say what you will about Jolla, the startup hoping to bring MeeGo back from the dead, but the company certainly has spirit. Managing director of Jolla, Jussi Hurmola, understands that the platform needs solid third-party apps as well as a thriving app store to have any chance of surviving in the mobile market. He went on to say that the company is hoping to build up an ecosystem around MeeGo, and will put out its own app store that will let customers purchase and download apps.

MeeGo got a reprise last week, when Finnish start-up Jolla Mobile announced it would be using the open-source OS for a smartphone push of its own, and now the company has been talking more about Nokia, app strategy and working in the shadow of the N9. CEO Jussi Hurmola sat down with The Voicemail, confirming that Jolla's public reveal had been prompted in part by excitement around the MeeGo PR1.3 update to the N9 last week, but that Nokia had known for some time that its abandoned OS was about to be resurrected.

MeeGo-rescuing smartphone start-up Jolla Mobile hasn't just received incubator support from Nokia, the company has revealed, but a chunk of mobile patents from Nokia's portfolio. The Finnish company from which numerous MeeGo engineers left to set up Jolla reportedly freed up several patents to establish the new firm with, founder Jussi Hurmola told ItViikko; rather than blasting Nokia for axing MeeGo and refocusing on Windows Phone, "I would like to thank Nokia" Hurmola says. [Updated after the cut]

This week we're jumping right in on the smart TV game with a review of the Samsung UN55ES8000, complete with an ultra-thin body and full 3D action. NASA is getting on board with a lovely new panoramic video of mars for your enjoyment. And for one more completely unrelated piece of news, the folks behind RoboCop 2013 have released a teaser trailer for OmniCorp that you're just going to love.